Proposed Irving TCD Meeting cancelled

national | miscellaneous | news report

Tuesday November 05, 2002 14:33

by AFA - Anti Fascist Action

afa at ireland dot com

C/o PO Box 3355, Dublin 7.

Fair play to TCD security for refusing to provide security for the proposed Irving meeting. They realise that the grief involved is not worth it to indulge the annual idiocy of some brattish 'debating society'.

A notice from David Irving's website.

Monday, November 4, 2002

Trinity College Dublin cancels planned talk by David Irving
Students at Trinity College Dublin's Historical Society have today informed David Irving:

On Friday afternoon we received the following communication from the head of security here in college:
" A visit to College by Mr. Irving [sic] a number of years ago was cancelled for security and safety reasons. While I am sure that the Historical Society and the vast majority of the college community would act in a responsible manner during this proposed visit, it is well known that there are various elements within and outside College who would use every means at their disposal to disrupt the visit. I have to take into account the safety of every person on campus (including near to 400 candidates/guests attending a Diploma Awards ceremony that evening) plus the security and care of College buildings and property.
On these grounds, I regret to say, I would not be in favour of this visit taking place."

This letter means, in effect, that although College cannot directly ban the event they wish to do so indirectly by refusing to provide security services for it. Unfortunately, we cannot prevent them from doing this, as security is provided for our meetings at the discretion of the College authorities. We have protested this decision with the utmost vigor, but College is quite immovable.
Subsequent to this letter, we held over the weekend an extraordinary meeting of the Society Committee at which it was decided that we regretfully are not in a position to proceed with the meeting planned for November 19th if the security of our guest, our committee and our audience cannot be provided for.
I wish to take this opportunity to apologise sincerely to you on the behalf of the Society for this turn of events and especially for the inconvenience no doubt caused to you. Our illusions about the commitment of this university to free speech have rather abruptly been shattered.

More information: Robert Lynch, Trinity College Dublin duhist@tcd.ie

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Comments (12 of 12)

Dublin University Hist. soc. first tried this on in 1988.

by iosaf (remembers)

Tue Nov 05, 2002 14:42

sad.

remember the smogs in 1988?

by pat c

Tue Nov 05, 2002 15:58

it provided a reasonable excuse to wear filter masks. a good night was had by all (well apart from the hist twerps & irving).

Aye

by Mags

Tue Nov 05, 2002 16:17

The smog was brutal all right - that was before Mary Harney abolished it. Was bloody cold too, but we kept Irving in the building for hours and he didn't speak.
Cork was good in 1999 too, he did not even venture near the campus then and the debating society scurried off like the rats they are once we got into the building :)

Lenihan was chair of the Hist at that stage?

by Phuq Hedd

Tue Nov 05, 2002 16:25

I seem to remember him blathering on about free speech. Thanks to the demo Iriving was corralled upstairs for hours and missed his Late Late Show appearance.

Yeah

Tue Nov 05, 2002 17:13

you are right PH, it rings a bell all right - can't recall if it was Brian or Conor though?

I think it was the Phil.

by Andrew

Tue Nov 05, 2002 17:16

I was one of the organisers of the '88 protest and I think it was another TCD 'debating' society (Philosophical Society) which asked Irving to speak. (Niall) Lenihan was indeed involved, after they had snuck Irving into the building aound 16.00 he came over to tell me the "eagle has landed" (I kid you not). I just told him it wasn't over yet.

Worth noting that later that year another Phil member tried to stage a party in his rooms to mark Hitlers birthday which a couple of us broke up. Later that night when we were in the Coffee Inn he arrived outside with a couple of thugs, pointed us out and they came in to attack us. Nobody was seriously hurt on either side but he later tried to sue another anarchist for distributing leaflets about what happened (the case was dropped after a number of months).

what I´d call 'Dockerellism'.

by iosaf

Tue Nov 05, 2002 20:25

a residual interest in the constituency which
is Dublin University.
I believe though that Murphy went then on to a U.S. university, and it had been him who had issued the invite.
Terribly smog-y.

Hist.ory repeats itself!

by Ali la Pointe - fun lovin race traitors

Wed Nov 06, 2002 19:07

It was the Phil. I remember Tommy the Commie giving us the etimology of the word 'philosophy' over a loudhailer. Sounds like there are a few neo-Costelloes about. Still, nothin like a bit of unofficial industrial action.

Tolstoy

Wed Nov 06, 2002 20:51

Wasn't there some guy called Tolstoy, a relative of the famous writer, who ranted on about why Irving should be let speak.

And Marty the 'Commie' broke a window beside the door in the GMB. That was before he became FF spinmaster of course!

At that stage I was up on the bike sheds at the back with some other suspects removing glass from the windows, but the Phil pricks pulled huge bookcases across and they were to heavy to remove.

Hopefully there is a statute of limitations on this stuff... :) No :(

oh mags be careful with the statutes of limitation

Wed Nov 06, 2002 22:49

Toltsoy I had competely forgotton about the Toltsoy dude. wow that brings me back. Does anyone remember the U.S. flag with swastikas on and the campaign on Nicuragua that year in TCD, following year a U.S. intern student used the new "incitement to hatred" law campaigned for by gayrights activists as a legal basis for an action against TCDSU and TCD to have the flag taken down.
I remember someone burning it.
But Mags I won´t spill the beans. :-)

Nah,

Thu Nov 07, 2002 17:39

That wasn't me anyway. I only paid flying visits to TCD.

I remember though in UCD about the same time the SWP was having wee fits about the US flag being displayed outside the USIT shop. It was only to advertise the J1 programme, but - it being the SWP and a campaign being needed for that week - they got a petition up and stuff. World capitalism did not fall...

the flag thing was interesting

Thu Nov 07, 2002 20:16

because it had been defaced by applying the swastikas so had to be destroyed under US law.

and
"World Capitalism lives to fight another day" was a Guardian frontpage caption for a photo of a crusty being battered by police at Seattle.
We used to have it in our kitchen in Streatham, next to a picture of the Swedish Royal family and some good recipes for mushroom flapjacks.

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Proposed Irving TCD Meeting cancelled

Comments (12 of 12)